Showing results by narrator "Ali Ahn" in All Categories

Claudia's loving the October weather and her many friends, both in school and in the BSC. But when she throws a party to bring her two groups of pals together, she creates more problems than she solves.

Your search for something new and different in sci fi and fantasy ends here. Presenting this year's collection of fresh voices, fabulous worlds, and fantastic new characters. Each year, the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contests' blue-ribbon judges search the world to discover and introduce to you the very best new talent in sci-fi and fantasy.

Kris Ballard is a motorcycle courier. A nobody. Level Two trash in a multilevel city that stretches from San Francisco to the Mexican border - a land where corporations make all the rules. A runaway since the age of 14, Kris struggled to set up her life, barely scraping by, working hard to make it without anyone's help. But a late-day delivery changes everything when she walks in on the murder of one of her clients. Now she's stuck with a mysterious package that everyone wants.

Ava is a firebug and she can start fires with her mind. However, she's caught in a deadly contract with the Coterie, a magical mafia. She's one of its main hitmen and she doesn't like it one bit. Especially because her mother's death was ordered by Venus and Ava's boss. When Venus asks Ava to kill a family friend, Ava rebels and flees.

Our voyage from Earth began generations ago. Now we approach our destination. A new home. Aurora. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, Aurora is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.

When 16-year-old Angel meets Call at the mall, he buys her meals and says he loves her, and he gives her some candy that makes her feel like she can fly. Pretty soon she's addicted to his candy, and she moves in with him. As a favor, he asks her to hook up with a couple of friends of his, and then a couple more. Now Angel is stuck working the streets at Hastings and Main, a notorious spot in Vancouver, Canada, where the girls turn tricks until they disappear without a trace, and the authorities don't care.

Izumi Tanaka has lived an uneventful 17 years in her small town, keenly aware of all the ways in which her family is different from most of her classmates’. But then Izumi discovers a clue to her previously unknown father’s identity...and he’s none other than the Crown Prince of Japan. Soon she’s traveling overseas to meet the father she never knew and discover the country she's only dreamed of.

In the weird and wonderful tradition of Kelly Link and Karen Russell, Amber Sparks' dazzling new collection bursts forth with stories that render the apocalyptic and otherworldly hauntingly familiar. In "The Cemetery for Lost Faces", two orphans translate their grief into taxidermy, artfully arresting the passage of time. The anchoring novella, The Unfinished World, unfurls a surprising love story between a free and adventurous young woman and a dashing filmmaker burdened by a mysterious family.

A keenly perceptive coming of age novel for fans of Sally Rooney, Curtis Sittenfeld, and J. Courtney Sullivan, All Girls follows nine young women as they navigate their ambitions and fears at a prestigious New England prep school, all pitched against the backdrop of a scandal the administration wants silenced.

When Mallory discovers that her boyfriend, Jeremy, is cheating on her with an online girlfriend, she swears off boys. She also swears off modern technology. Inspired by a list of goals her grandmother made in 1962, Mallory decides to "go vintage" and return to a simpler time (when boyfriends couldn't cheat on you online). She sets out to complete grandma's list: Run for pep club secretary, host a dinner party, sew a homecoming dress, find a steady, do something dangerous.

Kris Merrill's life changed irrevocably when, a year ago, she was targeted for termination by the Meridian corporation, one of the mega-conglomerates that controls the government in this dystopian future. She hid amongst the underground resistance - but now, right as her training with the anti-corporate movement is nearing its end, their compound is destroyed. Ready or not, Kris and the other trainees are recalled to the dangerous metropolis of San Angeles.

The tech boom of our time is changing San Francisco at warp speed. Famously home to artists and activists, and known as the birthplace of the Beats, the Black Panthers, and the LGBTQ movement, the Bay Area has been transformed by Silicon Valley. But the richer the region gets, the more unequal and less diverse it becomes, and the cracks in the city's facade begin to show. Inspired by Studs Terkel's classic works of oral history, writer Cary McClelland has spent years interviewing people at the epicenter of the Bay Area's rapid change: tech innovators, venture capitalists, coders, homeless advocates, pawn brokers, prosecutors, public defenders....

We have always fought. War is the furnace that forges new technologies and pushes humanity ever onward. We are the children of a battle that began with fists and sticks, and ended on the brink of atomic Armageddon. Beyond here lies another war, infinite in scope and scale. But who will fight the wars of tomorrow?

Sixteen-year-old Rosa lives in one of the eight enclosed cities of The Woodlands. Where the lone survivors of a devastating race war have settled in the Russian wilderness because it's the only scrap of land left habitable on the planet. In these circular cities, everyone must abide by the law or face harsh punishment. Rosa's inability to conform and obey the rules brands her a leper and no one wants to be within two feet of her, until she meets Joseph.

Growing up in the Bronx during the '80s, Korean immigrant teen Joon is forced out on her own as her family crumbles around her. From there Joon comes of age on the streets of New York, balancing on a tightrope between living and surviving while displaying equal measures of street smarts and naivete. Over time, Joon comes to understand herself and her place in the world.

Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series featured a complex cast of characters and touched on an impressive range of issues that were underrepresented at the time: divorce, adoption, childhood illness, class division, and racism, to name a few. In We Are the Baby-Sitters Club, writers from the original BSC generation will reflect on the enduring legacy of Ann M. Martin’s beloved series, 35 years later - celebrating the BSC’s profound cultural influence.

An Na has earned critical raves for her young adult fiction. She has won the Michael L. Printz Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. In The Fold, she examines the complications surrounding teenage plastic surgery. Joyce is thrilled when her aunt becomes suddenly wealthy. But when her aunt decides Joyce needs a makeover, Joyce must decide if she is ready to go under the knife to become the popular swan she's always wanted to be.

Harley Milano has dreamed of becoming a trapeze artist for as long as she can remember. With parents who run a famous circus in Las Vegas, she spends almost every night in the big top watching their lead aerialist perform, wishing with all her heart and soul that she would be up there herself one day. After a huge fight with her parents, who continue to insist she go to school instead, Harley leaves home, betrays her family, and joins the rival traveling circus Maison du Mystère.

Everyone has heard a different version of what happened that night at MacCallum College. Haley was already in bed when her roommate, Jenny, arrived home shell-shocked from the wild Conundrum House party. Richard heard his housemate Jordan brag about the cute freshman he hooked up with. When Jenny formally accuses Jordan of rape, Haley and Richard find themselves pushed onto opposite sides of the school's investigation.

Daniel is a freelancer without health insurance or a committed relationship when he suddenly finds himself as the sole caregiver for his dangerously premature daughter. As he grapples with whether he will run from responsibility or grow into fatherhood, he befriends an outspoken neonatal intensive care unit nurse struggling to balance the demands of her job and her own family.